


love to be alone (hate to be lonely)

by ZombieBabs



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 07:05:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4994866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieBabs/pseuds/ZombieBabs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After hearing the interview between Dr. Strand and Sebastian's kidnapper, Alex confronts Strand about something that the monk said.</p><p>*Edited 6.20.16</p>
            </blockquote>





	love to be alone (hate to be lonely)

Something has been bothering Alex.

If she's honest with herself, a lot of what has happened over the last couple of months bothers her. With so many questions unanswered, bothered isn't an uncommon thing for a reporter. 

In particular, however, Alex can't stop thinking about the interview between Dr. Strand and Brother Edward. While most of what the monk said was cryptic and incredibly creepy, something he said to a Strand stuck with her. It's been bugging her for the last few days.

She finally gathers up the courage to ask him when they are sitting together over delivery in her office at the studio. Still, in the silence, her fingers worry at the wooden chopsticks in her hand. It's not like she can come right out and ask. Or can she? With Strand, the most direct route usually seems to yield the best results.

“Are you--?” she asks. She can't find the rest of the words.

Dr. Strand looks up from his bourbon chicken and the stack of papers he was grading while she worked. “Am I what?”

Alex digs through the fried rice in front of her. She doesn't want to make him uncomfortable and spoil the companionable evening they've been sharing. He usually shuts her out any time she asks him anything remotely personal. “Never mind. It's nothing.”

“No. Ask.” His tone is casual, but the rigid line of his shoulders as he focuses on the paper in front of him almost convinces her to drop it entirely.

Almost.

“Are you—are you lonely? Like Brother Edward said?”

He raises an eyebrow. “I don't ever feel the presence of 'an Other,' if that's what you're asking.”

Alex puts her fried rice down on the desk. “You know it isn't.”

“I—” he pauses, glancing at her and then back to his grading. He makes a quick mark with his red pen. “Yes.”

She frowns. She didn't expect an answer. Not really. Not an honest one, anyway. "Oh."

His wry smile curls at the edges of his lips. “Does that surprise you?”

“Yeah. I guess it does. You always seem so—”

“Inhuman?” he asks. He makes another mark, red pen slashing through an entire paragraph.

Alex shakes her head. "That's not what I was going to say." 

"Then how do I seem?" His cool blue eyes finally meet hers.

She takes a moment to gather her thoughts. “Independent? I mean, obviously everyone feels lonely from time to time. But you always seem so—so capable. Of handling everything by yourself. Of being alone.”

He breathes out a laugh, “I apologize if I've disappointed you in some way.”

Alex gives him an unamused look.

“I don't know what you want me to say, Alex. I enjoy being on my own. For the most part.”

“But?”

Strand sighs. He rubs at his eyes without removing his glasses. “But sometimes the silence is overwhelming.”

“Don't you have—” she starts to ask.

“Friends? Family?”

“Well, yeah. You always know just who to call for the—” Alex allows herself to trail off. Right. Not friends, but colleagues. “What about Charlie?”

He laughs, but the sound isn't exactly pleasant. “She doesn't want anything to do with me. We haven't spoken in years.”

“But she loves you!”

“Does she?”

Alex frowns. “Of course she does. You're her father. She asked me to leave you alone.”

“I believe you'll find she asked you to leave her dead mother out of your podcast.”

Alex thinks back. He's right. Of course he's right. "That doesn't mean she doesn't love you."

He sighs, “Look, Alex, it doesn't matter. That man was trying to get under my skin. It didn't work.”

“It does matter, though.”

“Why?”

She stands up, hands palm down on the desk in front of her, and glares at him. “Because you matter.” 

Strand blinks. His mouth opens, but he can't seem to get any words through. It would be funny to see him so speechless if she weren't so frustrated with him.

Alex's cheeks light up at her own words, but she uses the rare advantage of height and even rarer advantage of his silence to continue. “You matter to me. And it hurts me to think that you'd rather suffer in silence than talk to me about how you're feeling.”

“I can't,” he finally manages.

“Why not?” Alex resists the urge to cross her arms.

“Because we—we work together and—”

She doesn't let him finish. “So?”

“So?”

Alex sighs and allows herself to sink back into her chair. “We work together, yes, but that doesn't mean you have to keep a twenty foot wall up between yourself and everyone you work with. You're allowed to care about your coworkers, you know.”

Strand doesn't say anything for a long time, but she can tell he's actually weighing her words against whatever belief he keeps locked inside of himself.

“What if I don't know how?” he asks. “To talk to people. About how I'm feeling, I mean.”

Alex grins, “We can practice.”

He laughs. “Practice? Really? That's all it takes?”

“Well, yeah.” she says. “What, did you think it was easy?”

Strand's eyes soften behind the frames of his glasses. If she hadn't spent as much time with him as she had, she might not have caught it. “You make it seem effortless.”

Her cheeks flush again, but she forces herself to return his gaze. “Was that a compliment?”

“Yes. It was.”

She isn't sure what to do with that. “I've just had a bit more practice, is all.”

He shakes his head. “It's more than that. You make me feel—you...matter to me too, Alex.”

Her heart does something funny in her chest.

His expression falls. “Did I say something inappropriate? I apologize—”

“No, no,” Alex laughs. “You're just better at this than you might think.”

He looks doubtful.

“Trust me,” she says. “We'll work on it. You'll have the hang of it in no time.”

"If you say so."

"I do." Alex glances at her takeout and grimaces. “It never tastes as good when you microwave it. Do you want to go get something?”

He looks like he's about to hesitate, but Strand surprises her. “I'd like that.”

"Awesome," she says. "I know a place around the corner that's usually open pretty late. You can explain to me again, in very clear words, how these tapes aren't related."

He sighs. "You aren't going to let that go, are you?"

"Nope!"

She makes him drive.

**Author's Note:**

> *Edited 6.20.17
> 
> I may go back one day and re-write this fic completely, but I'm not sure how to get them to have this conversation without them being as OOC as they ended up here. Oh well, it was written back in season one, and we live and we learn. :)


End file.
